


If We Only Die Once

by Apalapucian



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Marauders, Marauders' Era, i'm trying not to freak out i don't know how to tag, if we only die once, jily
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-28
Updated: 2015-07-28
Packaged: 2018-04-11 15:58:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4442051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Apalapucian/pseuds/Apalapucian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: Lily gets flak for dating James and gets sucked in to the belief that he's better off without her. She tells him she doesn't love him anymore, and after a while, she manages to make him believe the lie.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If We Only Die Once

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! So. This is going to be eight chapters. The prompt is (from forstanakatic on tumblr): "Lily gets flak for dating James from the blood purists (while still at Hogwarts) and even though she never thought it would bother her, it does, and she gets kinda sucked into the belief that James' life would be harder with her in it and considers ending things quickly so as to save everyone pain but James finds out and becomes furious". It was going to be just this first chapter as a standalone (long-ish) drabble, but the need for a sequel prompted me to weave a bigger story from it.
> 
> The chapter titles are OneRepublic songs, and the title is from "Something I Need".

_"I don't love you anymore."_

_* * *_   *

She's read the article four times in a row now, but her eyes stay glued to the paper. Her fingers don't shake. Funny. Her left hand doesn't grip the mug tight either. And she ought to, she thinks, she ought to, doesn't she; after all, she's got to find some way to channel the…  _this_. Whatever it is. What even is this? It feels… hollow. Her body's gone numb. Is this limbo? Oh god, she's losing it. Something's starting to whir in her brain, something she's worked long and hard to turn off. She can feel it slowly reverbrate back to life. She's scared. She knows why it's there, she knows what it's saying, and she's scared she may finally give in to it. But her fear seems to have just knuckled down on her heart rate. No shaking this time. No lashing out. No biting her lower lip in apprehension. Her heart, just her heart, has gone absolutely, beyond control erratic. She's going to break here, now; Merlin, she's brittle, and it's cold, and something… something is  _falling_  inside of her, or trying to gnaw its way out—but why then is everything else  _so still_ —?

"Evans?" Sirius calls from across the table.

She raises her head up a second too late to pass for nonchalance. "Yeah?"

"You okay?"

"Spectacular."

"You're sort of pale," Remus says from her right.

"No, yeah, I'm fine." She drops the paper and takes a sip of her coffee. Her movements are too precise. Her eyes shift too often. Her fingers too dainty. There's a lump in her throat that she's struggling not to swallow.

 _Stop it, Evans. Stop it. It's not_ —

"Lily." Sirius again.

"Yes?" Does she always sound like that?

Sirus doesn't answer, however, so she puts down her cup to raise an eyebrow at him. He's watching her closely, frowning, chewing on the inside of his lower lip. Then he turns to Remus, who shifts in his seat and takes the floor for him.

"Lily, I know what you're thinking," Remus begins, "but you have to know that James's dad has been having these opposition problems in the ministry for a while, and it's none—"

"No, I know." She smiles at them. It frightens her how easy the pleasant expression comes, how determined she is to hide this from them.

"Yeah?" asks Sirius.

She nods. "Don't worry."

"Okay."

"So… are they going to take longer?" she asks, glancing at her watch. "I have to go up soon and cram some more details for a Charms essay."

"Not sure. James promised Peter he'd help him talk to McGonagall about that partner of his; he got paired with this awful Slytherin for that long-term project thing, git's got a vendetta against… Evans, are you  _sure_  you're okay?"

She's started picking at her food with her fork, the silence egging the panic on to slowly catch up to her. "I'm fine, Black. Just… antsy. There's this—erm, this test later, and I haven't—"

"It's not  _you_ , alright?" says Sirius firmly. "This—" he reaches over to stab a finger on the newspaper, "—isn't you."

"Yeah," she says. She can feel Remus's eyes on her. "Yeah, I know that."

But she doesn't. And it  _is_  her fault.

* * * *

"Heard your boy toy's father lost his position in the ministry, Evans—where would you fish your galleons now?"

Lily looks up from the sink to the blood red, sneering smile of Demetria Greengrass. Her nails are glossy and as gleaming scarlet as her lips, and her annoying voice is magnified thrice in the empty loo. "Should've chosen Black, eh? Kid was a moron to cut off those roots, but I heard he bagged quite a lot from his dead uncle's inheritance anyway…"

Lily calmly dries her hands and combs her fingers through her hair, eyes steady and fixed back on her own reflection. "Wasn't your engagement to that Malfoy bloke called off, Demetria?" she bites back. "Because your father was stupid enough to get his name associated with those muggle murders last week?" Demetria looks like she just slapped her. Good. "Shouldn't you be worrying about that?"

Demetria reels. She crosses her arms, takes a step towards Lily. "Say that again?"

Lily locks eyes with her, just as cold. "Where would  _you_  fish your galleons now?"

She's made her positively livid. Demetria stands to the entirety of her height and glares down at Lily, black curls practically quivering in rage. "My father. Is  _innocent_."

Lily shrugs. "Cheers."

"I doubt you can say the same for yourself."

"Excuse me?"

Demetria cocks one perfectly shaped eyebrow, looks surprised at her own self, and then laughs. "I'm surprised he hasn't broken up with you yet." Lily stiffens, and the other delights with it. "It's your fault after all, isn't it? Your…  _mere association_  with him, with anyone the likes of Potter—it brings hell to them."

Lily rolls her eyes, but her hands get clammy and the air has gone dry. "Quit the theatrics, Greengrass," she admonishes, "you can take your chance to play your dream villain on me all you want and you'd still be just some desperate fence-dweller who wants in on the crazy blood supremacist club."

"James Potter's father lost his job because of you," she stresses again, enunciating every syllable as if she gets some kind of twisted self-gratification from it, as if Lily hasn't heard it in her head enough since the  _Prophet_ came out. "When will you learn to slink back to your fetid rightful place, Evans? Who knows what else he's going to lose unless you stop being so bloody selfish?"

"I don't know, a pair of trousers?" says Lily, commending her mustered perfect tone of feigned incredulity. "Definitely  _not_  the next Quidditch match. You sound like you fancy him quite a bit actually, why don't you go ask him?"

But Demetria Greengrass is relentless, positive that she has successfully zeroed in on a touchy subject. "You're the worst person for him, and you know it."

"Hey, that's almost concerned, friendly, soirée talk right there!" Lily retorts without a beat. "You want an invite the next time Mary fixes one?"

Demetria scowls at her in disgust. Lily wants to run away so bad, feels her insides recoil from her; but she can't let Demetria bloody Greengrass of all people know how much all of it is already driving her mad even without her so charitably pointing things out.

"How do you live with yourself?" Demetria hisses, and she might as well have just doused Lily with ice cold water.

The redhead grits her teeth, has to clutch the strap of her book bag to keep her fingers from shaking. Still, her cold-hardened eyes don't thaw under Demetria's sharp accusations. "I reckon I'd still pick mudblood over pathetic Death Eater groupie any day."

And then she gets out of there, because she's really not sure she can any longer fight the overwhelming urge to hex her.

* * * *

He's been throwing her funny glances all night. She would meet his eye, he would grin at her, and then his face would fall almost immediately when she'd look back down her notes. He thinks she doesn't see. The confusion. The hurt.

Around eleven, long done with the Transfiguration pamphlets, she asks him what's up. She half-regrets it, terrified of what he may say. But he only leans back in his chair, deliberates for a second, and then, "Nothing."

Tonight they're quiet. The fire crackles in the hearth, and they pick up snippets of conversations from the few people left in the Common Room. Usually they would latch on one and make it the start of their own. They'd chat for hours. He makes her laugh plenty. She does him, too. But tonight it's just the rustle of pages, the flickering light, Lily's quill scratching against her parchment and James's stolen glances almost pleading to be caught.

Later, when she's at the foot of the stairs and he's gathering up his stuff from the table, he calls her name out rather desperately. Lily turns around—he's standing there, indecision plastered on his face, the grimace everything he wanted but couldn't say. Books and notes almost spilling from his hands, glasses almost falling off, shirt untucked, tie loosened. He sighs and flashes her a tired grin that doesn't quite reach his eyes, and Lily concludes, by the way she then wants to steal him away from here so much, from circumstance and blood and time and everything that is wrong about them right now, that it's simply impossible to ever fall out of love with the prat.

"We're okay, yeah?" he asks her, and her heart stops.

"'Course." She smiles. "Good night, Potter."

* * * *

Eleven days.

Eleven days of half-hearted hand-holding, eleven days of looking away last minute that he ever only catches the corner of her mouth. Eleven days of empty laughter and pointed silences, of curt replies and quiet shrugs, of missing breakfast too many times. Eleven days of partnering up with Mary in everything; of shifting glances and pursed lips. Eleven bloody fucking days of tight smiles and half smiles and sad lingering smiles—those probably scare him the most, the last one, because most of the time it seems like she doesn't even know he can tell.

She wouldn't tell him what's wrong. She kept saying it's nothing. He knows what it is, but she wouldn't admit it, and he doesn't want to bring it up. Sometimes she would kiss him goodnight and it would feel right again, or she would draw herself closer to him by the fire and he would think,  _oh, alright. Thank Merlin you're back._

She never is.

He feels stupid, rooted to this dimly lit spot in the library, fingers frozen over the spine of some insignificant Transfiguration book sitting on the shelf.

"I'm breaking up with him," she tells Mary. James's hand falls to his side.

Across the table, Mary gasps. " _Lily—_ "

"No, it's okay. I—I've thought about it. It's for the best."

For the best.

Right.

_Right._

Mary doesn't respond at once, but when she does, the exasperation echoes loud off her hushed voice: "Is it?"

Lily is quiet.

Eleven days.

He thought he's forgotten some important date. He thought he's said something. A bag of caramel cauldrons sits on his night stand, a pathetic peace offering for whatever it was he did wrong.

He shoves the book hard in its place and gets out of there.

"I don't know," Lily answers, voice cracking, but James is already too far to hear.

* * * *

The moment he hears it, he draws his wand.

_Mudblood._

Like it was some spell that compelled him to do it.

In a second his hand has left hers, wand already aimed at the offender's chest, eyes flashing. Fifth year Slytherin, she notes, and then nothing else, because the spell is already leaving James's tongue. He's especially irate today. Hardly half the day's gone and he's already taken fifty points off random students.

She quietly steps in between them, and he understands at once.

He sighs, mutters 'fine', and then drops his wand. He takes her hand. It doesn't… it didn't feel right, that. It was almost as if—did he just second guess it? Reaching for her?

She lets him envelope his fingers around hers. She knows she shouldn't, and she's been doing such a bang up job controlling herself around him lately, but she internally sags in relief at the contact anyway. Just for today, she insists. She can't help it. That second of hesitation from him hurt—is that how it would be when she lets him go for real? Will it be worse?

He clutches her hand tighter than he has (let him) in a while, and she is so relieved she forgets about everything else but the fingers skimming the back of her hand. She shouldn't care, not anymore, not with that she's meaning to do, but she does. Hell, he's right here beside her and she already so terribly misses him.

James tips his head sideways to glare at the Slytherin. He doesn't say anything, but Lily sees the threat in his eyes, feels the itch to retaliate in his fingers. The student feels it, too; he scampers off, throwing Lily one last menacing look when he's at a safe distance away.

She doesn't spare that a second thought. All she can focus on right now is the way his hand squeezes hers reassuringly, the way he looks down at her and smiles—have his smiles been looking more like the half-hearted attempts she's been giving him lately, or does she only notice now? Does she hurt him as much?

"Alright?" he asks her, tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear.

She doesn't meet his gaze, making the excuse of straightening his tie. "Yeah."

He lingers on her face, searches for something she hopes he doesn't find.

She knows he doesn't believe her. And she doesn't need to ask to know he's not okay.

* * * *

"So when were you going to tell me?"

He doesn't look at her. His voice is faint, calculated, and he doesn't look at her. He keeps shuffling the documents on the table in rigid, perfunctory movements.

From the couch where she sits with a Potions textbook on her lap, Lily straightens up. "What?"

But they both know she's figured it out.

"I heard you," James tells her anyway, "in the library the other day."

She takes a deep breath but doesn't answer. The sound of the papers repeatedly thudding against the table grates on her ears.

"So when?" he presses still.

Lily flips a page, testing the sharpness of the edge against her index finger. "I don't know."

"Right." He slams the reports on the table and gets a new stack, eyes browsing through the one on top, not seeing. "Because I waited all day yesterday, you know. Tried to maybe brace myself for it."

Lily bites her lip and tries to breathe through the heavy weight crushing down her chest. "I'm so sorry…"

"When then? Next week? After the bloody NEWTs?"

She sighs and closes the book, puts it aside slowly, as if she can make something out of the time it takes to get off the couch and walk over to him, as if she can think of a better way to do this.

"Were you even ever going to?" She's only a few yards away and he still won't look at her. "Or did you think you can just be detached and quiet and I'd just give up?"

"That's not what I want."

"Because I won't. Not ever. And neither should you."

"James."

"And it's stupid, this. Whatever you're doing."

She reaches for his hand, takes the papers out of his grasp and clings to him. He's shaking. "Stop."

"No,  _you_  stop." He finally spares her a glance, and something about him softens when she stares right back. Or breaks. But he can't be broken, Lily reasons. Not yet. "I thought we were over this," he tells her, and he sounds drained. Eleven days. It's time to quit it. "They can all rot in hell, Evans. Nothing else matters. You. Me.  _That's it._  That should be it. You know damn well that I don't give a single flying fuck about blood. You of all people should know. I thought… what, you're just going to let them get to you?"

"No, it's not that." Her walls are up, and her heart is gone. She can do this. She has to. "It's not about them. I'm not letting anyone—"

"Then  _what_? Because you can't just call this off like that! It's everything—this is everything right now, Lily. You're not dropping me just because some narrow minded lunatic fucking told you you're not right for me."

"Please, James, it's not… that. Okay? Listen, this just isn't working out anymore, alright? It's for the best."

He huffs angrily. "Yeah. Yeah, I heard that bit as well. How exactly is breaking up for the best? Is it going to stop the war? Is it going to make those Slytherins lay off you? Is it going to make me not care about—"

"You're getting it all wrong," she says quietly.

" _Stop lying to me!_ " he yells, wrenching his hand out of hers.

Her gaze weakly follows his hand; white-knuckled fist tight on his side. A distinct memory of losing him in a second—that sweeping terrifying feeling of being one second too late to haul him back, wand already out, blood already boiling, just because _mudblood_ has become his compulsion to throw himself out there—ices over her resolve beyond redemption. The world out there is not a school corridor. People man the frontlines, the brave aim their wands, but the enemy doesn't scramble off. Some die. Some lose their minds.  _Mudblood_  is a death sentence for the citizens who  _associate_ with them, for those who could still otherwise be, at the very least, untouched by all of it. She brings hell. She should cut him off.

 _You win,_ she wants to scream at the world.  _You win._

"I don't love you anymore."

He draws in a quick, shallow breath, jaw slackening, eyes wide in a second of disbelief. She thinks she should repeat it, and she tries to, but she can't.

"No," he whispers, and Lily half-wishes he'd keep not believing.

"It's… I don't."

" _No_."

"I was curious—"  _Walls up, Lily. Walls up._   _"_ I gave it a shot because I was curious. That's all. But now… now I'm thinking that's it. There's nothing more to it. And I—"

"This is bullshit, Evans." His voice is dangerously low, the edges on his face back, defined to the cusp of its ferocity.

"I'm with you only because I thought…"

"You gave me a shot because you were  _fucking curious_?" he snaps, incredulous. "Do you  _hear_  yourself?"

"I don't love you anymore. I—I don't think I ever did. I'm sorry."

" _Shut up_." He rubs his eyes, pushing his glasses up, fingers gliding up to massage his forehead. He grits his teeth and says, "You're not doing this to me."

"I'm sorry." Because really, what else is there to say? "I'm so sorry…"

"This isn't it!" He snarls in sheer frustration, facing back the table and gripping the edge, weight falling on his arms. His eyes fix themselves on a particular spot of the polished wood, unmoving, dazed. "This is a cheap shot, Evans. I can't—I don't believe it."

"It's true," says Lily flatly. "And I'm sorry, but that's just it."

"Nice try. _"_ He laughs a horrible, empty laugh, and then turns to her with a glare that is more pained than mad. " _Nice try._ Hurts like all fucking hell, but you knew it would. I  _know_  you knew it would, Lily, didn't you?" He straightens up. "Well, tough luck. I'm not leaving. I'm not going anywhere."

"You have to. There's nothing for you here."

He steps forward and puts a hand on either of her shoulders, tipping his head down to peer at her eyes. " _You,_ " he implores. "You're here. And you're lying to me.  _Why are you lying to me?_ "

She looks away. "I'm not."

"My dad lost his position in the ministry, Evans. I'm not dumb. I know what this is about."

"What's it about then?"

"You bloody tell me!" His hold tightens, his eyes glaze over. "Godric, for someone so brilliant you sure can be an idiot, did you know? I don't care about any of them! I don't care about where we come from, or what they say—Lily,  _I love you_ , I've been in love with you since forever, and I'm not giving this up! This is  _thick—_ letting this go would be the most pointless thing—"

"You don't make me happy."

His hands leave her. "What?"

"It's not about you, or your dad's job, it's about me. You don't make me happy."

A pause—hesitant, torn up—and then, "Classic line. I'm not falling for it. We're okay, Evans, you know we are. I'm going to fight for you. I  _am_  fighting for you, okay? Stay. Don't give up on us. Don't let—"

"I don't want you. To fight for me."

"Don't—" He runs a hand through his hair, nails raking deeply, eyes screwing shut. "Don't do this. I know what you're doing, and you have to stop it. Don't let them get to you. Please."

His voice cracks, and Lily can't take it anymore. She wants this done, she wants it to end, she wants to leave. She wanted to do this quick to get started on the whole forgetting thing right away, because—because that's the way this goes, right? You let people go, you hurt, you take the guilt, you forget? She doesn't want to lose him. But she doesn't want him hurt either.  _Who knows what else he's going to lose unless she stops being selfish?_ Why can't he see that? Why is he so stubborn?

"Are we?" she demands, her voice rising as well. Frustrated. Scared. Mad that she's made to do this, mad that she's sold into this skewed judgment beyond reparation, mad that she can't convince herself to take everything back. That she has to be so madly, desperately in love with him, that it's so bloody difficult to keep remembering, every second of standing here, watching him fight for her so hard,  _why_ she's making him leave. "Are we okay? Do you believe that?"

" _Yes_!"

"I don't," she says cruelly. "I'm not happy with you."

He pauses, lets that sink in. He's so hurt, and he's so tired, and she wants it to end. But he just—he won't cave in. "You're just saying that."

"I don't love you, James." Maybe someday it'll be true. Maybe someday she'd forget how once upon a time he'd only hold her hand and they'd be  _invincible_ —maybe someday she'd look back and not miss the way the world melted away when he kissed her, the warmth of his skin beneath his shirt every time she pressed herself against him, how safe she felt whenever he pressed his lips against her temple. "I'm just being fair."

"These people are making you say these things," James keeps on, but she aches at the noticeable shift in his voice. More desperate now. She's nearly there then. Just a few more buttons to push, just a few more jabs at his heart, and he's gone for good. Gone and safe from her. "You're playing right into their hands," he pleads. He's convincing himself as much as he is convincing her now. "They want rifts, Lily, and this is one hell of a rift you're so generously handing to them, don't you see? I'm not going to let it happen. I  _don't_  believe you. I'm not falling for this. It's pure, utter bullshit, and you and I both know it."

Just a few more. "James, listen to me."

"I'm  _not_ letting you go, Lily."

"You ruined my friendship with—"

"Wow," he cuts off scathingly. " _Wow_. You're… it's that bad, huh? You're using  _this card_  against me?  _Really?_ You're resorting to this?  _Unbelievable!_ "

But Lily can't stop now. Not when she's almost done. "You're ruining my relationship with Tuney. And I'm—apparently I'm hell to your family as well, so—"

"Who told you that?"

"I—no one."

"Because that's not true, and I swear to Merlin I'll  _murder_  anyone who's making you—"

"Will you stop and listen to what I'm saying?" she snaps, hastily wiping the tears traitorously dampening her cheeks.

He swallows, licks his lips like he does when agitated. He lets out a shuddering breath as he looks up at the ceiling and blinks rapidly.

"No one is making me say things," says Lily coldly. "No one is  _getting to me_ , d'you hear? This is me. All me. And you need to  _listen_."  _Some more. Safe from you. For good._  "I don't love you. That's it. Maybe I did, but it doesn't matter. You're not good for me. I'm not happy. I lost my best mate, I lost my sister, and I… I just can't be with you. And—and I'm sorry, about your dad, about everything, I'm really sorry, but it's not that, not just that, and I—I really…"

"So I'm ruining your life," he says. His eyes reflect the dying fire, but they've never looked so downcast to Lily. "Is that it?"

She doesn't answer.

There. She's done it. And… and she knew it was going to hurt, but she didn't think it would be this bad, didn't think anyone was capable of handling this much of a blow—it's  _unbearable,_ oh god; his cold, dead voice, his fingers slowly uncurling from its tight fist, everything about him crumbling before her, finally giving in, his face smoothing out and losing any trace of emotion.

"Is that it, Evans?" he demands lifelessly. "Tell me then. Look me in the eye and mean it."

"You don't make me happy," she says, looking him squarely in the eye. "You never knew me the way Sev did. And… I don't think you ever will."

It's the last card. If nothing else works, that will. He could maybe never believe anything else, but when it comes to Severus Snape, for some reason his certainty wavers. Only by a modest degree, but it does. She knows it does. Which is idiotic, she wants to tell him— _ridiculous, James, you're such an idiot—_ because how can he? He's the best person she knows. Best person she ever will know. He's the person who knows her most, loves her most. The only one. Ever.

It's the worst thing to tell him, the worst she could possibly say, and it's not even true.

But it will work. That's all that matters now, isn't it?

And by the way he opens his mouth to respond, twice and nothing comes up, the way his hands rise to his face to clear his cheeks, to breathe through his fingers, the way he bites his lip and looks away, the way he shakes his head and lets out a cracked, shuddering chuckle that wrenches Lily's spine until her nerves shut down and she can no longer breathe, can no longer feel anything—she knows it did. That one finally got to him.

"Fine," he exhales, voice raspy and broken and so soft she almost didn't hear.

And then he's out the door.


End file.
